1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to the sharing of assets by multiple objects, and more particularly to the sharing of assets according to a hierarchical asset sharing model, wherein the accessibility of each asset by each object can be controlled to allow various levels of control by the different objects.
2. Description of Related Art
More and more companies are taking advantage of e-commerce channels to communicate sales and marketing information to potential customers. One of the ways this is done is by creating web sites for the companies which are accessible through the Internet.
Although a web site may appear to be a very simple mechanism for distributing information, it can be very complicated to construct. The more information a company wishes to provide to customers through its web site, the more complicated the web site becomes. Interestingly, features which are intended to make the web site easier for visitors to use often require increased complexity in the structure of the web site. This leads to increased difficulty in the construction, maintenance and management of the web site.
One of the ways in which web site structure can be complicated is through the use of different web sites which need to utilize the same assets. “Assets” may include many different features of the web sites, such as images, documents and other page layout components, as well as architectural assets such as channels and views.
Conventionally, the sharing of these assets is accomplished by either copying the assets from one web site to another, or by modifying the software for the different web sites specifically to enable them to share assets. The first of these options, copying the assets, is relatively easy to accomplish, it does not really achieve the sharing of the assets. Put another way, each web site has its own set of assets, each of which is initially identical, but which may later diverge. Copying does not result in a common set of assets which is accessible by both web sites.
The second option, modification of the software for the web sites to enable them to share assets, can achieve the desired functionality, but at a relatively high cost. The programming effort which is required to modify the software can be tremendous, and is typically far too great to be justified by the resulting asset sharing between just a few web sites. Even if this option were not so costly, this type of programming effort is normally beyond the capabilities of the web site operators, who generally either purchase the software or contract out the development of the software.